Naturally fearful
Biophobia or why not all animals are equal, especially it seems those with fins.
Welcome to the latest research digest article from Compassionate Nature which explores biophobia. This is the first part of two articles, focussing on what biophobia is, how prevalent it is and how it relates to our perception of animals.
You're gonna need a bigger boat.
Did a famous two-note film theme just start playing in your head? If you are of a certain age then you may recognise that line from a film which it is claimed lead to almost overnight increased fear of sharks.
The Jaws effect.
Jaws was a best-selling book by Peter Benchley, released as a film in 1975, telling the story of how a great white shark brought terror to an American coastal town. A 2012 paper by Brenda Francis reflected on the media and public perception in Australia before and after the film release. Prior to the film it is suggested that outside of certain countries, like Australia, most people were broadly unaware of shark attacks and even in Australia the risk from sharks had been seen as low. In the 1950’s the idea of the “rogue shark” was proposed for the rare attacks on people by sharks, which Jaws ties in with. After the film there was much more public awareness and interest in sharks, often resulting in detrimental activities towards them, with increased culling and competitive shark hunts fuelled by sensationalist media reporting, especially if there had been a shark attack.
The term Jaws effect appeared in a paper by Neff and Hueter (2013) which also highlighted that after the film public discourse around sharks focused more on words like man eater and killing machine. They proposed that a more nuanced language would be helpful, as attack suggests a predatory motive by a shark which is often not the case, using categories ranging from sightings through to a fatal shark bite. The paper also underlined that in reality humans did not feature very high on the prey list of sharks. Benchley was so aghast at what his book and the film had lead to that he became active in promoting shark conservation. As time has progressed the interest sparked from Jaws has slowly shifted towards more conservation and awareness of how endangered sharks are. Possibly.
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It is a sobering thought that even though sharks as a species have survived five mass extinction events across the ages they are now endangered, with around 31% of shark species classed as under threat of extinction. Why are sharks facing extreme and rapid declines in populations globally ? It is wholly due to the actions of another animal. Humans.
Despite knowing about the Jaws effect, the declining shark populations and that they are more at risk from us than we are from them, you probably still felt a sense of fear or unease from the above image of a great white shark. Perhaps it is because such an image reminds us we can be prey ourselves. Historian Professor Ronald Hutton suggests that as humans we have an innate fear of the lone alpha predator .
All animals are equal.
That’s what the animal inhabitants of Orwell’s Animal Farm initially decided as key law. A shark is part of the nature. We want to feel connected to nature and protect as much of it as possible. Or do we perceive some things in nature as better or nicer than others? Why is a panda seen as more appealing in promoting nature conservation than a shark? Some recently published papers may help to explain what is termed biophobia, how prevalent it is and how it may influence decisions.
I really don’t like that.
The term biophilia was first used by the psychoanalyst Erich Fromm to describe a psychological based attraction to everything that is alive. Biophilia was later used by biologist and entomologist Edward O. Wilson to express an innate sense of connection with nature that humans have. It is a term that is becoming more well known due to the increasing focus on our connection and relationship with nature. Perhaps less well known is the opposite, biophobia. The American Psychological Association define biophobia as “a human fear of certain species (e.g., snakes, spiders) and general aversion to nature that creates an urge to affiliate with technology and other human artefacts, interests, and constructions rather than with animals, landscapes, and other elements of the natural world.”
Melissa Norberg and colleagues at Macquarie University in Australia published a biophobia review in 2023 focused primarily on animals (zoophobia). Biophobic responses towards certain animal species usually starts in childhood and often continues into adulthood. It can be linked to fear of an animal, due to its appearance, the sounds it may make or how it moves. It may also be linked to disgust at the animals appearance or its behaviours. Information about diseases linked to animals may also invoke or contribute to a sense of disgust or fear. Some studies have suggested that women are three times more likely than men to experience animal related phobias.
The review includes a number of theories relating to biophobia. The predatory imminence continuum theory, developed from observations of animal behaviour between prey and predator, suggests a spectrum of emotional response based on the perceived threat level from a predator. The theory suggests that as threat levels increase so defensive reaction changes. When a predator is sensed nearby, levels of anxiety increase and defensive behaviours such as avoidance may happen. When a perceived predator is close by and the threat of attack increases then the emotional response may result in panic, resulting in possibly freezing or feeling the urge to flee.
Preparedness theory (Seligman, 1971) builds on this to suggest biophobia is linked to an innate biological response which can be quickly learnt and maintained to a perceived threat from animals or other natural stimuli that have threatened human survival during history. This has been studied using “fear-relevant” and “fear-irrelavant” stimuli to measure emotional responses and resultant actions. The theory has not always been supported though, with some studies finding that natural threatening stimuli may not rapidly develop into a fear that is maintained any more than from non-natural threatening stimuli.
The authors of the review suggest the theory which has the most supportive research is a multifactorial model, which links evolved biological behavioural patterns to experiences which relate to normal childhood fears. This model suggests that children with a genetic vulnerability towards the perception of threat and who experience an encounter with an animal that worsens a fear are more likely to develop a phobia towards that animal. The fear felt towards the animal is often disproportional to the actual threat and is maintained through cognitive biases. These include attentional bias, where threatening stimuli receive more attention, and expectancy bias, where the threat is overestimated in terms of probability and consequence.
On the increase?
The New Scientist magazine recently reported that biophobia appears to be on the increase, especially for residents of urban areas, a claim that a 2023 data analysis paper from Ricardo Correia and Stefano Mammola considers in great detail.
They wanted to explore if biophobia was on the increase in comparison to other phobias and what was the relationship with urbanisation. The urban consideration is important. Globally levels of urbanisation are increasing which presents a couple of related but almost paradoxical issues. If biophobia is on the increase while contact with nature is reducing, what may drive a fearful response to something not encountered in reality? But as urban areas encroach more and more into natural environments contact with animals which may cause a fearful response, including those which may attack a human, become more likely.
The study used Google Trends data to look at internet searches relating to phobias. The analysis included 25 types of biophobia and 25 types of other phobia, which would represent a baseline to compare if the biophobia levels were increasing relative to other phobias. The 25 biophobias included obvious ones such as zoophobia (fear of animals), selacophobia (fear of sharks), and ophidiophobia (fear of snakes) plus some more perhaps less obvious, such as anthophobia (fear of plants) and alektorophobia (fear of chickens). The date range of the searches was from January 2004 to November 2022 and they also collected country data from a number of reputable sources covering urban population statistics, venomous species, and population anxiety levels.
The most searched phobia was not a biophobia, it was social phobia, linked to social anxiety and overall searches for biophobia were found to be less common than other common phobias, such as acrophobia (fear of heights). That said the most common biophobias were comparable in search volumes to some common general phobias, such as anophobia (fear of needles). The top three biophobia types were arachnophobia (spiders), mysophobia (microbes) and parasitophobia (fear of parasites). The least searched related to acarophobia (fear of small crawling insects that cause itching).
Overall biophobia was found to be increasing, with search volumes relating to 17 of the 25 types increasing over the period while 5 stayed broadly steady and 3 decreased. The fastest growing phobia relating to vertebrate animals was cynophobia (fear of dogs) and give that the date range includes the covid pandemic, it is perhaps unsurprising there was a sharp rise in mysophobia (microbes) during that period. The least searched biophobias were anthophobia (fear of plants) and mycophobia (fear of fungi).
The country analysis revealed some interesting findings, showing a skewed distribution in biophobia related searches. Of the 250 countries included in the data 49% did not show any biophobic related searches. The highest interest in biophobia, determined by how many of the 25 types were searched for by country, came from the US and the UK (24), Australia (23) and Canada, Mexico and India (22). The analysis found strong relationships between the level of searches to the percentage of people living in urban settings and to urban growth. There was also a strong correlation between biophobia and the health phobias that were included in the other phobia category.
The analytical approach to the search data may have some limitations, through the use of contextual topics rather than keywords so the results may include some searches not directly specific to a phobia. There are also variances in internet access across the 250 countries included, so using internet searches may not fully represent actual biophobia levels within a population. The analysis is really helpful though in providing a view of biophobia levels, indicating there is growing interest in biophobias that does appear to be linked to urbanisation levels, which may have implications for connection with nature and for nature conservation.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the, er, deadliest of all?
If the perceived threat from an animal may contribute to biophobia, is it worth considering which animals actually pose the biggest threat to humans in terms of annual deaths?
There are quite a lot of “top ten deadliest animals to humans” lists around to address that question. The mosquito (although I think that is technically unfair, it’s the disease it carries that kills humans) is usually top of the list. Many of the published lists include animals such as dogs, crocodiles and elephants. Sharks don’t make it onto the list.
That’s right, Dumbo is a greater threat than Jaws.
Okay, that is due to the differences in the number of interactions humans have with those animals and an elephant is not classed as a predatory animal. However despite the inclusion of a more friendly great white shark called Bruce in the animated film Finding Memo there remain plenty of films which continue the Jaws motif, such as the 2018 film The Meg and its more recent 2023 sequel Meg 2 : The Trench featuring Jason Statham going toe to fin with a megalodon, a very large prehistoric shark that apparently in movie-world isn’t as extinct as thought.
Does it still matter that sharks are portrayed like this? The declining populations would suggest it does and the effect that fear towards sharks can have was underlined in a paper just published by Hudson Pinherio and colleagues (in press, 2024). They highlight conservation programmes that have successfully increased shark populations within Brazilian Marine Protected Areas (MPA) and which have also improved the overall local marine ecosystem. However due to the fear of attacks following two incidents in 2015 and 2022 there have been increasing calls for shark culling and restrictions placed upon underwater research carried out by diving in the MPA. The authors report this as being fear driven and suggest alternative steps informed by scientific research. They recommend that studies should be carried out to assess why the shark attacks happened to inform appropriate safety measures, along with increased public awareness of the conservation work and fostering appreciation of sharks. They also call for the underwater research to commence again given its importance to monitoring the MPA and not progressing the proposal of shark culling. It appears a balanced response informed by science rather than fear.
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
In Animal Farm, when the pigs take over, they change the law.
Maybe they were thinking about sharks too.
Biophobia, especially when it manifests as a phobia towards an animal, is a fascinating psychological construct when you think about it. We appear to have evolved and pass on innate information about attributes of animals which pose a threat to us. This appears to make sense when we consider human evolution - by the time you have worked out the stick is a snake and not a stick, the snake has bitten you, so it is better to be more threat focussed. What I really find fascinating is that this innate fear response can surface towards animals that we have never met or are very unlikely to ever encounter. The innate information may be linked to certain animal attributes that are also supported by socio-cultural information. With growing urbanisation there can be both a disconnect with nature while in certain countries that urbanisation increases the probability of encounters with animals such as snakes, crocodiles and elephants.
The probability of me ever swimming near a great white shark is very, very low. And yet, despite what I know about sharks, their decline and the psychology behind biophobia, when looking at pictures of sharks for this post I could still sense that inherited unease. As for choosing the spider image…well, after that I had to have a strong coffee.
Perhaps one way for us to address a fear or unease we notice about an animal is to find ways to learn more about them. By finding out the facts about the animals we prefer to turn away from, perhaps we may find them more fascinating than fearful and see that to them humans are the bigger threat.
In the next article I’ll explore some more recent research which looks further at how biophobias may influence our behaviours and our sense of nature connection. Thanks to my fellow writer and psychology geek Sam for the suggestion of looking at biophobia.
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References
Correia, R. A., & Mammola, S. (2023). The searchscape of fear: A global analysis of internet search trends for biophobias. People and Nature. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10497
Francis, B. (2012). Before and after'Jaws': Changing representations of shark attacks. The Great Circle: Journal of the Australian Association for Maritime History, 34(2), 44-64. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23622226
Neff, C., & Hueter, R. (2013). Science, policy, and the public discourse of shark “attack”: a proposal for reclassifying human–shark interactions. Journal of environmental studies and sciences, 3, 65-73. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-013-0107-2
Norberg, M. M., Visvalingam, S., Stevenson, R. J., & Saluja, S. (2023). A review of the phenomenology, aetiology and treatment of animal phobia and insights for biophobia. People and Nature. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10514
Pinheiro, H. T., Luiz, O. J., Rocha, L. A., Wohak, K., & Francini-Filho, R. B. (2024). Beyond fear: a new paradigm to manage shark recovery in Brazilian marine protected areas. Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pecon.2024.01.007
Seligman, M. E. P. (1971) Phobias and preparedness. Behaviour Therapy, 2(3), 307-320. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0005-7894(71)80064-3
Interesting read :)